Fri, Dec 20 - On to Fiordland National Park

I got up at seven feeling much rested, but Bob, unfortunately, has a cold!  We all walked downtown for breakfast at a café,  Hil had fruit toast and Bob and I each had a huge dish of delicious corn and red pepper fritters with salad -  we should have had one order to split.

We took off south at nine down the Cardrona River valley on our way towards Queenstown.  Just before that city,  Bob directed us to Lake Hayes where we got great views of the very colorful Crested Grebe and some Pacific Ducks with cute ducklings.  He then, surprisingly, told us to jog a little north to the historic town of Arrowtown, an old gold mining location with remnants of their Chinatown and a main street of small old buildings that have been spruced up to contain very nice retail stores.  Hilary and I found a lovely jade shop and got jade pendants shaped into Maori stylized fishhooks.  Then Hil found a quilt shop that had an amazing variety of really neat NZ fabrics. We were ashamed to take advantage of his weakened state, but there it was!   

Arrowtown

We tore ourselves away and  Hil drove south on Route 6  along side Lake Wakatipu which starts at Queenstown and ends 24 miles later at the hamlet of Kingston.  

We pulled off at Garston and had delicious meat pies at an old hotel/café before turning west onto Route 94 to Te Anau.  We reached the town at ~four and drove a few km north to our “Self Contained Luxury Cabins” Blue Thistle.  We have a lovely two-bedroom cabin with a large kitchen/living room for the next three nights.  They have three cats which was a selling point, but they have yet to appear!

Hil and I drove back into town to get provisions and picked up a tuna pizza on the way back.  We had Tui Beer, crackers and local cheese while watching the end of “When Sally Met Harry” and then had a delicious dinner of the Pinot Noir that we had purchased at Nautilus so long ago during our wine tasting in the Marlborough Valley, the pizza, and salad.    Sun doesn’t set until 9:36 here so we practically have to go to bed in daylight!